Like many people with publicly visible email addresses, I have gotten
dozens and dozens of emails from Nigerians and members of other African
nations inviting me to engage in a fantastic opportunity to help them
smuggle / embezzle funds from their country.

These emails have become so pervasive that even
Google makes mentions them in their
webmaster information section: "Reserve the same skepticism for
unsolicited email about search engines as you do for "burn fat at night"
diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators."
(source)

These emails are from groups of con artists who have literally developed
a national industry in Nigeria from engaging in a scheme called "advance fee
fraud", or 4-1-9 (after the section in the Nigerian criminal code covering such
activity). Originally begun in
the late 70's as written letters (with roots all
the way back to the 1920s!), then later as faxes, now they are almost
exclusively perpetrated via email. These letters typically fall into a few broad
categories, as seen above. The actual scam scenarios are detailed
below.

"....Nigeria is still ranked as one of the
most corrupt countries on earth. U.S. citizens lose approximately $2 billion
($2,000 million) a year to Nigerian fraud -- be it credit card fraud, insurance
fraud, or 419 scam letters, or counterfeiting," which totals about "two
and one-half times the value of our total U.S. exports to Nigeria.""

Anyhow, just for laughs, I have begun tallying up how much money I "could
have" gotten if I had followed through with the dozens of offers I receive
monthly, as well as archiving the emails. I expect to exceed the GNP of Nigeria
(ca. US $36,240,000,000) within two years or so, and probably exceed the total
wealth of the world within 5 years or less.

Above, on the right, I have linked to the various
subcategories that each email falls into. I have not changed the actual email
addresses used, in fact, I have made them active mailto:'s so that the Spam Bots
will eventually render their accounts useless.

What is the Nigerian
Scam, anyway?

In a nutshell the scam
works like this: you get an email from someone claiming to have access to a very
large sum of money, and all they want in return is to use your bank account to
transfer the funds. In exchange for your services they will give you some
healthy percentage of the funds, usually 20% or more. Sometimes they request
that you furnish them with blank company letterhead, and/or bank account
information.

First off, they often use
your letterhead to make fake Visa sponsorship requests to the U.S. Embassy in
Nigeria to get into the US, alternatively, they use the letterhead to send
recommendations to other companies that will be enticed into the scam in the
future. With your banking information they will draw up false financial
instruments against your account and suck it dry.

Second, as you fall into
the scam, they explain that all they need is a few thousand dollars to get
appropriate documents prepare, to create a will, a dummy corporation, licensing
fees or what have you.

Of course, after this
initial fee is paid, yet another payment is required. Perhaps this time, a bank
or government official has discovered the goings-on, and requires a bribe.
Finally, they convince you that the only way to close the transaction is to go
to Africa personally, after all, how can they trust you with all that money?

Upon your arrival in
Africa, to put it bluntly, you are screwed. They usually smuggle you into
Nigeria without a visa (which is a serious crime there). Once you are in their
hands, the moment you stop cooperating (i.e., paying them money), you will be
threatened with arrest for illegally entering the country, your life will be
threatened, most likely you will be severely beaten, and many times the victims
are held for ransom. For this reason, it is common practice for the scammers to
ask for the contact information of your spouse and other family members.

(PDF file), over
25 murders of Americans have been directly linked to the "Four One Nine" fraud.
This scam is perpetuated worldwide now, mostly thanks to the internet. Many
people from other nations have also been killed, and many, many more are still
officially "missing"....

PLEASE REMEMBER:
If it's too good to be true, it is!

PLEASE REMEMBER ALSO: Just because the emailer claims to be from
Gambia or the Philippines, or some other place, that doesn't mean that your
'contact' is not a fraudster.

First of all, these con men are inveterate liars, and secondly, how hard
is it for anyone to claim in an email that they are in South Africa, Gambia, or
even Mars?

I have gotten a few emails from potential victims asking me if the con
has "spread" to X or Y country. It doesn't matter if the contact doesn't seem
to be from or in Nigeria. If you have read all the information I have presented
here, and still don't recognize the pattern of the con, well, you will
learn the hard way.

Let me just add on a personal note, recently, several of my
website design clients
who are advertising
houses for sale in Mexico, have been approached by Nigerian
fraudsters who claim they are interested in buying their million dollar homes,
and request a meeting in London, or some other far away place, until the
purchaser's "visa is approved". Also, of course, they want "banking information"
in order to make "financial arrangements".

Luckily, all of my clients have been well-schooled in the dangers of this
scam, and don't even bother responding to them.

DIRTY MONEY.... A large sum
of money has been treated with a special chemical substance making it unusable,
however, luckily, another special (very expensive and rare) chemical can be used
to clean it.... if only you would front the money to buy the chemical, a healthy
commission is waiting for you... but hurry, the chemists aren't willing to make
the chemical very much longer!

DEAD FOREIGNER.... A large
sum of money has been left in an bank account by a visiting businessman in
Nigeria, who tragically died in a car/plane wreck. Unfortunately, the
lawyer/bank employee can find no heirs.... would you like a share in these funds
by posing as the sole heir of the deceased's estate? Of course, some lawyer fees
and estate taxes will need to be paid for first... but hurry, in a short time,
the government will seize the funds and put them into their war fund!

OVER BILLED GOVERNMENT CONTRACT
.... The National Petroleum Company (or another government
agency) of Nigeria has been purposely and successfully over billed a large sum
of money on a legitimate contract. Now all these fellows need is a helpful
foreign company to make them dummy invoices so that the funds will be
transferred. Wouldn't a minor investment to get some paperwork pushed through
the Nigerian government bureaucracy be worth the millions of dollars that your
share will bring... but hurry, the contract needs to be billed within a short
period of time, or the payment will lapse!

ILL GOTTEN GAINS.... A
large sum of money was left to the wife/son/daughter of a Nigerian
Royal/Dictator/Opposition Party Member who has since been ousted/assassinated.
Sadly, there is no way to safely get these funds out of the country without the
help of an open-minded foreigner. Some minor out-pocket expenses will need to be
paid, initially, of course, but imagine the rewards of having your share of the
money... but hurry, the new government in power is trying to recover these
funds!

FORTUNATE
INVESTOR....
A wealthy (usually ex-royal, ex-government official) investor
wants to invest in a large sum of money in a foreign country, but
can't attend to the business personally. Wouldn't you care to do
them the favor of overseeing the investment? Of course, some sort
of formalities will need to be attended to first, after all, how
can you be trusted with their millions without first having you
meet them in Nigeria.... but hurry, this is a limited time offer,
and the new government in power is closing in!

BELOW MARKET COMMODITIES....A
fortunate Nigerian has gotten a large quantity of crude oil/gold/diamonds but
cannot move them from their storage facility without the help of a foreigner
investor. If you would only pay some "earnest money/fees/bribes" he will let you
keep a very generous percentage of the commodities' market value once they have
been sold.... but hurry, time is of the essence, the people in charge of storing
it are getting suspicious!

LETTER OF CREDIT.... A
Nigerian business places a relatively small (legitimate) order from your
company, perhaps $1000 worth of goods. Shortly thereafter, another order is
placed, for a slightly larger amount, again, paid in full. Suddenly, an urgent
order and much larger is placed, but this one needs to be air freighted on the
double! Your Nigerian partners have just received a lucrative government
contract, and if this shipment arrives on time, it means many more large orders
in the near future. Don't worry about waiting until the bank draft clears...
after all, the order is from our friends in Nigeria, and they have always made
good their payments before...

FAX O' DEATH....

I had never heard of this one, but the U.S. State Department's
report on Nigerian
Fraud (PDF file) has an actual reproduction (p.25) of one of these...
Basically a wealthy executive gets a "pay or die" demand from a "professional
assassinator organization"... hurry, if you don't pay, or if you tell anyone
else, you will be killed by our observers! I'd laugh if it weren't so twisted...

THE HELPFUL POLICE OFFICIAL....
Another con that I learned from the U.S. State Department's report is the
re-victimization scheme. If at any point, the victim decides to walk away from
the deal, an individual posing as a government or police " task force official"
will contact the victim and offer to "investigate" the scammers and attempt to
recover the lost funds...of course, this sort of investigation requires the
utmost privacy and discretion, and apparently that doesn't come cheap in
Nigeria... but hurry, you have to start this investigation as soon as possible,
or else "they" will get away! Ironically, more often than not, the same group of
scammers is responsible for the "re-vic" con, and it has also been documented
that con men often resell the "walk-aways" to other groups of con artists that
specialize in the re-vic scam.

In the 1920's (though research has revealed evidence leads to examples of
this con as early as 1588) a type of advance fee fraud flourished that
became known as "The Spanish Prisoner"
con.

In
the Spanish Prisoner con, businessmen were contacted by someone
trying to smuggle the child of a wealthy family out of a prison in Spain.
But of course the wealthy family would richly reward anyone who helped
secure the release of the boy. Those who were suckered into this paid for
one failed rescue attempt after another, with the fictitious prisoner
continuing to languish in his non-existent dungeon, always just one more
bribe, one more scheme, one more try, away from being released.

I hope
this sounds familiar!

The "Spanish Prisoner" con is so clichéd it was made into a
pretty good movie written by David Mamet.

Another good site with sample letters, facts and other info about the 419 scams,
not to mention good info about Africa in general:
www.africaservice.com/fraud/

London's Metropolitan Police Department Site's information about the Nigerian
Scam, in some parts a summarization of the State Department's PDF report on the
fraud, so if you don't have Acrobat, you can read about it here:
www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/419.htm

www.buddyweiserman.com: some guys
played one of these scammers using the name "Bud Weiser". They've
included photos, copies of their correspondence, even voicemail recordings of
the messages left by the scammer. It's a riot.